A two win Michigan road trip slipped through NIU’s grasp this weekend.

The Huskies defeated Central Michigan 25-23, 25-19, 25-21 on Friday, but could not close out their bout with Eastern Michigan on Saturday, falling 18-25, 25-19, 25-27, 25-19 and 13-15.

“We didn’t play as well as we would’ve liked to in both matches,” said NIU head coach Ray Gooden. “But it’s better than being 0-2.”

The first set against CMU saw both teams making mistakes, but NIU (10-8, 2-2) was able to snap out of it. A couple of Allison McGlaughlin kills broke the 18-18 tie and led to the Huskies win.

The Huskies scored the first point of the third set with a Cassie Yates kill and never lost the lead.

NIU finished off the set and the match with another Yates kill.

The Huskies concluded the match with a .237 hitting percentage to CMU’s (9-7, 3-1) .150 percentage.

NIU did a better job handling the ball with seven fewer errors, and was more accurate with 37 kills

on seven fewer attempts.

Outside hitters McGlaughlin and Meagan Schoenrock led the team with 12 kills each.

Freshman Kristin Hoffman held the NIU attack together with 33 assists.

“Sometimes we have a tough time getting out of the gate,” Gooden said. “We’re going to continue to try and figure out what we need to do to have a stronger start.”

Saturday saw NIU fall in five sets to the Falcons (7-11, 2-2).

The turning point came in the third set where the Huskies were two points away from a set win with a 23-19 lead.

The Falcons quickly went on a 4-0 run to tie the game.

After a back and forth battle to 25, EMU scored the final two points to end it with a kill and a Schoenrock error.

“If we had closed that one out, we would have given ourselves a much better chance to do it in four as opposed to pushing for five,” Gooden said.

After dropping the fourth set, the Huskies went up 2-0 in the fifth set, but that was the biggest lead that they would get.

“There’s a few things we need to fix as we move on so we don’t put ourselves in that spot again,” Gooden said.

Schoenrock was the Huskies leading attacker with 26 kills.

McGlaughlin was also a big help with 19 kills.

Hoffman continued to rack up assists as the team’s setter with 66.

Hughes and McGlaughlin led the defense with 27 and 16 digs respectively.